Let's Talk Dinner Party

Actually, let's start by talking dinner. Square called me tonight to sweetly offer to pick me up from work. It was a beautiful evening, so I politely turned her down and walked home. Unbeknownst to me--because she didn't tell me--she was actually in the parking lot of a sandwich place we enjoy getting herself dinner...and nothing for me. Seriously. Shouldn't that be one of the unforgivable curses? Avada Kedavra, cruciatus curse, imperious curse, and not sharing your dinner curse.

We did host a fall dinner party that we think was quite a success. Square did the tables (and pulled a Marilyn by whipping up a runner and napkins the afternoon of the party) and I did the food. Friends of ours from Cville and DC came, which was lots of fun. We were thoroughly entertained by the folks.

Apparently while we were entertaining, you all were talking about us and how we would handle things that "did not go as planned." Well, we are freakin' planning geniuses, so everything went PERFECTLY...except for my ironing board would not close. I don't want to point fingers, but it has ALWAYS CLOSED for me...just saying, Square was the last to touch it while it was still working. We both tried to get it to close and then we enlisted K., my college roomie's (C.) fiance to work on it. Which he did for 30 minutes with nothing to show for his work. It's not exactly like we have a large place and there were 4 extra people staying with us...so we shoved the open piece of crap in a closet. Problem solved.

Square thinks we should mention the menu: I roasted the pumpkin seeds from all of her amazing jack-o-laterns and roasted some almonds and made some cheese crisps for apps. We did stuffed acorn squash (cornbread stuffing and sausage), a beet and pear salad, and garlic green beans for dinner. We did chocolate cake, carrot cake and the most expensive cake I have ever made--a maple cake. Turns out, when you add maple sugar and pure maple syrup to a cake--it gets pricey. The icing for this cake also had raw eggs, which we were concerned might lead to disaster #2 (and, potentially way worse than the ironing board b/c I only have 1 VERY SMALL bathroom): Salmonella poisoning. However, we each consumed a significant amount of frosting (for testing purposes only) hours before the guests arrived, so we think it was a-okay. We are already planning our next party for the spring...and it involves a croquet set...

PHOTOS: Dinner, dessert, and the table.